What might any scientist, perhaps one like A. J. Bateman, who did a foundational study in sexual selection, have done to save himself from his likely mistakes? Bateman might have used a control experiment to test if the assumptions of his methods were met.

Could Bateman's influential conclusions about the lack of effect of mate number on reproductive success of mothers have been due to an undercount of the number of offspring mothers must have had? Our repetition proved that an unreliable method produced biased results.

It is well-known that women have curious powers to reduce men to hysteria or violence. Less well-known is the power of promiscuous female flies to reduce scientists to apparently self-deceptive blindness to scientific facts.